Quiet Time at Quinsigamond State Park

I can't say that Quinsigamond State Park is my favorite state park in Massachusetts, but it's definitely my most visited, specifically the Lake Park portion. You see, Lake Park is virtually across the street from our house. There's another portion of "Quinsig" farther down the road, on the other side of where Route 9 divides Lake Avenue in Worcester (and that area, Regatta Point, is essentially just a beach front and head of the many regattas that Quinsig hosts). But Lake Park is on our side, and I'm glad it is -- it's a perfect place to walk laps along the oval that circumnavigates the park about 1 1/4 miles around, with almost half of it a stone's throw off the lake and its pleasant views as you go.



For almost five years, it was the perfect place for me to walk our basset hound Izzy every morning, with full laps on weekend mornings. Many times before work it served as a placid locale for viewing pink-hued sunrises. I've traversed Lake Park hundreds of times, so that alone makes it a special state park destination.

But last Saturday, Jordyn and I took a different path on a morning walk in Lake Park. We carefully tread down the woods path that led right to the water's edge. There's also a beach area at Lake Park, and my hope was that we could "hike" along the edge safely to the beach about a quarter mile away.

Unfortunately, we couldn't. About halfway there, the path disappeared so we took a detour back uphill through the woods. Jordyn wanted to get to the beach, so we kept going on our little journey, and I decided we would work our way back along the water's edge and see how far that took us (I was hoping to reach one of the natural paths that lead from the highland walking trail down through the woods). Again, we started out well but Jordyn decided we should head up to the trail -- only there was no path to do so where we stood. So in essence, we bushwhacked it, on our hands and knees, clinging to branches, roots and rocks as we made our way up.

All in all, it was a quick adventure and our grand total distance didn't even equate to the full loop around the park. But it was a path we'd never taken in a place we visit all the time, and going that much closer to the water and its little islands made this go-around that much more peaceful. Just goes to show, there's always room to explore what's right around the corner. (Arlen)